The One Before Whom Evil Trembles
by piaffe417
Summary: "Rose Erskine was no more and no less than a goddess on earth and Sekmet herself had bound Bennet to her long before the two had ever met. He had been a fool to think he could release her from his life – only the gods and goddesses held that power and Bennet Drake was a mere mortal."
1. In the Desert

**Author's Note/Introduction: **It's worth noting that I would never have taken the time to write this story if _Ripper Street _hadn't been renewed for a third series, such would have been my despair. So if you like it, don't thank me, thank the folks at Amazon Prime, et al. Secondly, whether you like it or not, please don't tell any of my colleagues that I wrote it because my attentions are supposed to be dedicated to a couple of professional-type articles at the moment – articles that my muse refused to finish until this piece got out of the way. (She's kind of pushy sometimes.)

No clue how long this will be in the end – we're following the _Alice in Wonderland _theory of writing here (e.g. "begin at the beginning and when you get to the end, stop"). Spoilers for all episodes are rampant, so govern yourselves accordingly. And finally, I don't own these characters, don't want to own them, and will put them back right where I found them when I'm done. I promise.

* * *

They came together in the desert.

It was after the skirmish at El Teb, the waking nightmare that transformed not only his daily habits, but quickly claimed each and every moment of what were supposed to be his resting hours as well. Each time he closed his eyes, the wails of the enemy filled his ears, images of severed limbs and flashing blades appeared in his mind's eye, and the cold fingers of fear squeezed his heart once more. Instead of screaming in the dunes as he had been when Colonel Faulkner and the rest of the regiment found him, however, he began to keep the whole encampment awake with his wailing and even broke the hand of a corporal who dared reach out to him in the throes of his terror.

Words could never explain it to his fellow fighters - what he saw, tasted, and felt in those moments when he closed his eyes in the desperate hope he could surrender to sleep and discovered naught but blood around him instead. The horrors lived in that disconnected place between sleep and awake, a place where rivulets of blood pooled in the coarse sand and its spray lay metallic on his tongue.

Even if he could have talked about what he saw, enough comrades had witnessed the rendered results of his single-handed attack on the Egyptian dervishes to believe that he was already madder than a London hatter. And after the incident with the unlucky corporal, it would take the heat of battle to bring them close to him in no less than a pathetic and desperate hope that his killing abilities could help them survive the day.

But Her Majesty's service would not send Sergeant Bennet Drake into battle again. She instead would send him home - to what, he knew not. The Crown had used him up as she'd seen fit - his strength and youth - and now that he was reduced to a haunted shell of a man, she would toss him aside to make room for a fresh replacement.

Yet what good would he be in England now? What good was the monstrous form the boiling Egyptian sun had forged him into? Wasn't the Crown worried about the evil he could bring to bear at home? Would he harm himself - or worse, harm others?

But clearly the answers to those questions were no longer Her Majesty's concern. The curse was Bennet's and Bennet's alone to bear.

Yes, in true blue bureaucratic fashion, the British Army had introduced evil into his life under the guise of saving him from starvation on a London street and there were no scissors big enough to split the red tape that now bound the situation. And so, in the depths of his deepest despair, he sought an alternative.

Trustworthy natives helped him find his way to the black canyon the Egyptians spoke of in hushed tones. It was there, the locals believed, that a holy man lived - quite possibly one of the last of his kind - and it was said that he could do things that no other man could, that he communed with the same ancient gods who had spoken to the pharaohs. Some believed him to be immortal and others reported that he was at least three hundred years old.

Mortal, immortal, or otherworldly - he was Bennet's last hope.

Dehydration and hallucination nearly claimed him before he reached the tiny tent in the dark depth of the canyon - though he later wondered if perhaps he had simply passed out on the way and the holy man was the one, in fact, who found _him - _especially after all that came to pass. Some_one _or some_thing _brought Bennet Drake to the canyon and the course of his entire life changed after, the fact of which offered strong indication that there were one or more higher powers at work.

Later, Bennet would only recall all that happened bits and pieces, though what things he _did_ remember were clear and sharp, etched into his memory with the permanence of the tattoo on his right arm. But unlike the tattoo etched with stark precision into his fair English skin, the memories were shrouded in a haze of confusion and interlaced with snippets of things he later thought might have only occurred in his imagination.

Wordlessly, the holy man gave him water laced with some kind of herb that lulled Bennet toward sleep. Ever the soldier, the sergeant battled with everything he had to stay awake as his tongue tasted blood that may have sprung from his recurring nightmare or might very well have been his own. Sleep he feared more than death and Bennet would have given in to his own demise more easily.

"You must sleep," the holy man intoned, his voice low. "She cannot find you if you are awake."

Bennet tried to find his voice to protest and to ask who "she" was, but the herbs proved too strong and his weakened body ultimately succumbed.

At the moment of release, he saw her.

Later, he wasn't sure if her appearance coincided with the holy man taking out his ink and needles to inject her lithe form into his sunburned forearm or if she really _did_ appear before him in the dim light of the tent, but he recognized her instantly as a friend, for her mere presence banished all traces of fear from his heart. She stood before him, a striking figure in blood red robes with the regal head of a lion. She took him by the hand and he felt a cool breeze sweep over his feverish brow, quelling the cacophony of anger in his heart as it began to pump in a quiet and relaxed rhythm for the first time in what seemed like ages.

The holy man's voice sounded as though it spanned the width of the canyon to reach Bennet's ear as he heard him say, "She is Sekmet. She is 'The One Before Whom Evil Trembles.'"

The lion-goddess slowly blinked long lashes over her eyes in acknowledgment of her name, but when she raised her gaze to meet Bennet's, he was shocked to realize that they were not the deep brown he expected them to be.

They were instead a piercing blue.

The goddess reached a gentle hand toward his heart and Bennet felt it flower into full bloom in that moment. An open heart was a detriment to a soldier - a handicap to be overcome if one was to succeed in battle - and Bennet's was as closed off as they came until the moment that Sekmet's outstretched hand came to rest on his chest. The first thudding beat shook his body to its core and he felt himself gasp as if he had just surfaced after diving into deepest water. If this was what it was like to feel emotion again after ignoring it for so long, he wasn't sure he could cope with the sensation. It was too much, too overwhelming, but as he began to form the question for the blue-eyed goddess, everything suddenly went black and sleep claimed him once and for all.

It was nearly a full day later when he awoke, his right arm smarting from the presence of his new tattoo but his mind clearer than it had been since before his arrival in Africa. His heart thumped comfortably in his chest in a way he hadn't experienced in a very long time and he realized that he actually felt young again. What's more, he felt more fully himself than before. The goddess had brought him back to life, had returned what the Crown and the dervishes in the desert had taken away.

The old man was seated nearby when Bennet sat up and rubbed his eyes.

"She came to you," the holy man observed with no emotion in his voice. "She believes you are a warrior worth saving. You will save many others in return."

"She's asking a lot," was all Bennet could manage, his throat scratchy and voice ragged.

"She travels with you now," the holy man told him, gesturing to the tattoo as Bennet drank deeply from the water skein he offered. "She will guide you through battle safely if you allow her to - and when the battle is over, she will watch over you so that you may sleep in peace. I have prayed for this and made offerings to make it so."

"I hope you're right," Bennet said in earnest. He rose shakily and the holy man stepped forward to assist.

"Trust in her," the man said and he placed his hand over Bennet's heart in the exact place the goddess had. "_Trust in her_."

"I thank you," Bennet told him sincerely, clasping the man's hand in both of his own. "I'm not a man of many words, but I thank you very much for this."

It was at the opening to the tent that Bennet thought to ask a final question, one that still nagged at the corner of his mind: "The goddess - is she supposed to have blue eyes?"

The holy man's own brown eyes widened in surprise and disbelief and he clutched Bennet's forearm, the one that now sported the goddess' form tattooed on it, causing the young soldier to inhale sharply at the sting. "What did you say?"

Bennet repeated himself: "When I saw the goddess in my dream, she had blue eyes." He paused for a moment to take in the holy man's reaction. "Does that mean something?"

The holy man's gaze raked Bennet Drake and appraised him from head to toe, his expression indicating that conflicting thoughts ran through his mind. But when he spoke, he said simply, "Only the goddess can reveal her secrets to you."

And under the most unexpected of circumstances, she did.

TBC


	2. In the London Morning

**Author's Note: **If you liked Chapter 1 and you're pouncing on Chapter 2, best to pace yourself now because Chapter 3 is going to be a bear to finish. (Also, I have that professional writing project that's tugging on me at the moment and colleagues with high expectations. You know how it is.) So patience, my good readers, and in the meantime, feel free to click the little review tab below and share your thoughts. (The muse gets curious.)

* * *

The goddess guarded her secrets for many years after Bennet Drake returned to London, but she did not fail to keep him under her protection and he felt her presence keenly in those moments when his anger flared and his temper threatened to get the better of him.

Injustice. It thrived in Whitechapel in those days. Poor families woke up hungry for equality, for fairness, and for justice and the only thing available to fill their plates were heaps of the _in_justice that grew like a great creeping vine through their pitiful patch of city. It wasn't satisfying and it only left people hungrier than they were when they began each day.

As a policeman - first a young bobby and finally as sergeant to esteemed Inspector Edmund Reid - Bennet saw the effects of injustice every day in his work. In all other aspects of his life, he had discovered a sort of balance - the camaraderie he shared with his fellow police officers was comfortable, his routines had their own regular rhythm - from the markets where he regularly purchased goods for his small, spartan flat to the Brown Bear Pub he liked to frequent for a quick pint after a long day - and he even experienced the occasional day when he felt as though he'd really made a difference, that he'd helped make life just a little better.

On the rest of the days, however - to be honest, on the _majority _of the days - he was forced to swim upstream against his anger at the injustice and cruelty he forcibly fought on behalf of those who couldn't do so for themselves. His reputation as a bully and single-handed quasher of riots was deserved and he didn't hide from it, nor did he shirk his responsibilities to the Inspector when a confession needed to be beaten out of an unwitting criminal in a quiet basement cell at the Leman Street station house. But whereas most bullies enjoyed the fight because it allowed them to feel superior to those upon whom they preyed, Bennet Drake felt no such joy. In fact, the sole (and largely unknown) reason that he became the most successful fighter in Whitechapel had nothing to do with skill or pride or any of the usual characteristics that accompanied such an accolade. No. Whenever injustice was about to be served to another unwitting and undeserving citizen, Bennet Drake became the angriest man in the room and that level of angry aggravation made him impervious to fear. Fury-fueled fearlessness was the most deadly kind there was and so it was no wonder that few remained willing to tangle with him as his reputation spread.

Yet for the most part, the old rage of the desert - the blind kind that had rendered him more monster than man - remained at bay, thanks to Sekmet and her protective hold on him. Moreover, thanks to the openness of heart she had generated within him, he was able to laugh in lighter moments and allow friends like Mr. Reid, Sergeant Artherton, and others to feel the warmth of his admiration when the occasion called for it.

Indeed, the holy man's prayers must have been successful, for rarely did the nightmares attempt to enter his subconscious at the end of a long day. The closest they ever came were during his boxing days - a sanctioned and equal fight he found he began to look forward to with a little too much eagerness - and once this characteristic was acknowledged, he retired his gloves and found that the nightmares retreated to the shadows once more.

Still, the open heart that was the bane of a soldier's existence was likewise a similar handicap in police work - especially in Whitechapel police work - and the goddess' eventual revelation would put that heart into a type of danger that overwhelmed and frightened him more than any desert battle or riot ever had.

It occurred on a cold London morning - the damp kind that went directly into the bones of anyone mad enough to venture forth so soon after the dawn. Two of Long Susan's girls were missing and, with Captain Jackson's help, Bennet and the Inspector came to understand that the missing girls and their current murder investigation were linked. With a small regiment of bobbies for back up, they sought the lair of Sir Arthur Donaldson - a nasty piece of work whose latest hobby, the trio were appalled to learn, involved choking the life out of young prostitutes while in the throes of passion and capturing the entire event on a new kind of moving picture device.

Susan's girls were in grave danger indeed - especially when the men of H Division burst into Donaldson's townhouse and the man himself was nowhere to be found amidst the hung-over and drug-addled people they discovered in a half-naked heap on the second floor.

While Jackson asked one of the barely conscious girls where Susan's missing Rose was, something familiar chose that moment to tug at Bennet. It raised the hairs on the back of his neck in a way he hadn't experienced since his days in Egypt when dervishes were near - an inkling that something was about to happen and he needed to prepare for it. Danger and combat were imminent and he felt it keenly in the struggle with Donaldson's friends as they searched the room for the party's host.

"Get the sword, Sergeant!" Reid cried after one of Donaldson's shirtless cronies swung awkwardly at Jackson in a poor attempt to stop the onslaught of police officers streaming into the room. Jackson was knocked aside, but a swift kick with Bennet's boot dispatched the threat handily and the weapon leapt easily into the sergeant's hand as if of its own accord.

The room searched unsuccessfully, he and Reid glanced out the second-story window - where they glimpsed Donaldson and a struggling young woman in the garden below.

_Rose!_

"Drake!" Reid exclaimed but the sergeant was already in motion.

A slighter man than the burly Inspector and far quicker on his feet, Bennet took the stairs two at a time, the sword still clutched in his grasp. As he burst into the garden, a war cry ripped from his chest - the kind he hadn't uttered since that wretched day at El Teb. At his yell, Donaldson turned his attention from the girl, eyes reptilian and haughty. He hadn't expected to be caught and wasn't accustomed to being governed by the same ideals of justice that Bennet and the Inspector adhered to. No, Sir Arthur Donaldson fully expected to get his own way in this and every situation and his genuine shock at the appearance of the police only incensed Bennet further. The girl Rose was but a toy to the wealthy playboy - something to be played with roughly for a bit, then cast aside as rubbish when it was broken beyond repair.

In the seconds it took him to cross the short span of grass, present-day London merged with the long-ago the desert in his mind and Bennet Drake became once more a monster whose thirst could only be slaked with hot dervish blood. Arthur Donaldson was a dragon to be slain and, Saint George-like, Bennet pierced him cleanly with the sword before the toff could utter even a gasp of protest. Their eyes locked long enough for Bennet to register the other man's shock as he fell, but once he was down, Bennet observed his work coldly, noting how the blood dribbled from Donaldson's slack mouth and drained the life from his dark eyes for good. Reid galloped up to glance over his sergeant's shoulder, eyes wide and astonished at the skill of the blade work before he remembered himself and stepped back into his position of authority.

"Does she breathe, Sergeant?" the Inspector demanded.

The question - and a desperate, choking gasp from the table beside him - was all it took to bring Bennet back into the reality of the cold London morning and the desert of his mind's eye faded into fog.

"She does, sir," Bennet responded as his shaking fingers unbuckled the horrid leather collar from around her neck, then tore off his own overcoat to cloak her trembling frame. Rouge and blood were mixed in equal parts across her ashen face, her nose was bloodied, and her curls were thoroughly disheveled, but somehow she still managed to be the most beautiful woman Bennet had ever seen.

His heart gave a substantial _thud _as big as the one he had experienced in the desert when Sekmet had opened it for him and he tried not to let the jolt of it knock him off his feet. Thankfully, her body was light - bird-like - and it took no effort whatsoever for him to lift and carry her to a waiting Maria for transportation back to Tenter Street. She was in and out of consciousness for the whole of the trip as Bennet cradled her closely the way one would a rescued puppy.

He didn't dare gaze upon her face, however. The beat of his heart was already too loud in his chest and the hairs on the back of his neck continued to stand at attention, only now the immediate danger they detected didn't seem as though it would require him to wield a sword or his oft-used billy club. This perceived danger was of a new sort - an altogether unsettling prospect.

As he deposited her tenderly on the chaise in Jackson's disarrayed room, he could avoid gazing at her no longer, for she began to speak in a low whisper.

"I thought..." she started, then trailed off weakly. "...at last... I thought it was safe again."

All Bennet could muster was a gentle admonition. "Shush now. It is - it _is_ safe now."

But as his reassurance landed upon her ears, her eyes looked up into his and he felt the rush of blood flood his ears with another echoing _thud_.

**Hers were the blue eyes of the goddess. **

It was Sekmet he looked upon in that moment - and then it was not. The eyes were the same blue and rested beneath the same dark lashes; they were at once confused and all-knowing. They looked not only at him, but also _within_ him - deep into the soul of the wounded warrior who had saved her life.

It was in that instant that Sergeant Bennet Drake felt his wildly beating heart fly from inside his chest cavity and land firmly within hers. The roaring blood that coursed through his veins was so loud that he could hear nor see nothing but the woman before him and he fought to catch his breath. Once, he had placed himself into the care of the goddess and she had protected him from evil. Just now, she had reappeared in his life and aligned him with an entirely new entity, one that could prove far more dangerous:

Bennet Drake was in love.

In his moment of overwhelmed confusion, Rose reached for his heart in the exact same way the goddess had when he had dreamed of their meeting in the desert. He felt himself freeze as Rose's hand tangled in his lapel, for if she managed to rest her hand on his chest, he felt certain he would surely succumb to death on the spot. It was too much, too fast - so it was a relief when her fingers fell limply to her side before they were able to attain their target. Then the dark lashes fell over her blue eyes and concealed them from him once more, breaking the spell.

"Thank you, Drake, I'll tend to her now," Jackson materialized and waved him off with his good hand, but Bennet remained solidly in place. His eyes were unable to leave the face of the woman before him, for a piece of him now dwelled within her and he was reluctant to leave it behind - especially when it was such a vital and vulnerable organ as the heart. Finally, he felt his feet carry him into the hall and he glanced back briefly, mind still racing at the memory of what had just occurred.

"Only the goddess can reveal her secrets to you," the holy man had said and now she had. She had opened the heart of Bennet Drake so that he could receive the one emotion he had long felt certain that he might never experience.

But Shakespeare had written, "The course of true love never did run smooth" and, goddess or no, Bennet Drake was soon to discover the weighty truth of those words.

TBC


	3. In the London Darkness

**Author's Note:** At long last, my professional writing commitments have slowed and my colleagues are (at least temporarily) content. This has enabled me to complete the third installment of what looks to be a four (or five) part piece. (_Alice in Wonderland, _people. _Alice in Wonderland._) And let me tell you, the research on this was exhausting. I mean, having to watch my Series 1 and Series 2 DVDs over and _over _again... Just rough. (Okay fine; I enjoyed every minute.)

Standard disclaimers apply to what follows: I don't own or rent these characters and I left everyone as undamaged as they were when I started. This includes Dick Hobbs, who was dead before I began typing.

(Is this a good time to mention that there are spoilers for all of Series 1 in this chapter?)

Also, the next chapter will have spoilers for all of Series 2. (Better early than late, I always say.) The very best thing you can do if you like it or hate it or feel anything at all is to fill in the little box at the bottom and let me know. Thanks much - cheers!

* * *

That Rose Erskine wanted better for herself than the lot of a poor bobby's wife, that she desired a wealthy patron willing and able to support her aspirations for a career on the stage, should not have surprised the bobby in question, one Sergeant Bennet Drake. In fact, if he was completely honest with himself, it really didn't. His mind fully grasped the logic of her attempt to reach high up on her tiptoes, to stretch up over his head in an effort to attain some dream that neither of them could see. She wanted her life to be as easy and comfortable as she possibly could; she wanted it to be the exact opposite of what it had been to date. How could he blame her for that - especially when he desired the same thing for himself?

The challenge was that _his_ dream looked exactly like Rose Erskine, whereas hers didn't remotely resemble anything like Bennet's war weary form.

Still, logic could not sway his steadfast heart, for just as a desperately thirsty man will drink from a mud hole in the desert if it's the only moisture available, a lonely man will cling with both hands to the hope of love - even when that hope is thinner than a cobweb and just as flimsy.

It was an interesting and wholly uncomfortable way to live, he soon learned. The space between the world of measured reason and illogical aspiration was uncharted, its terrain rough and unpredictable at every turn, If he could have given in only to his mind - the part that understood with complete certainty that she would never reciprocate his feelings - he could have navigated his way through each day with ease and certainty. But his heart - that ignorant organ - refused to believe the evidence as it was presented. In fact, a court of law would have convicted the heart of the crime of unrequited love and committed both organ and master to the asylum based solely upon the facts presented, yet his mind could perform no such similar task.

Even on the lone occasion when logic gained the upper hand – the day he banished Rose from his flat - the heart would not give in. It happened the day after the American Pinkertons raided Tenter Street, scattering Long Susan and the girls to the wind - the very day Rose materialized on his doorstep, breathless and frightened, and he gave her refuge as any good soldier or copper would. In the aftermath of all that, his heart argued for her to stay as long as she liked, but for once his mind won out – no doubt in a last-ditch effort to protect the heart itself from more harm. And so it was his mind that told her that Bennet deserved better than to be just her rescuer whenever she was in danger and his mind that sent her forth into the world of Whitechapel once more.

The words were true, of course. Even Rose knew it and accepted their validity and even Bennet felt a bit better for having spoken them - yet his heart lived in his throat for a week after, a relentless reminder of the loneliness brought on by her absence. She'd been in his rooms but a few hours and he'd been away for the majority of them assisting the inspector, but somehow in her wake she'd left a gaping hole in the already tiny flat that made the walls echo with emptiness.

For Bennet Drake was indeed the loneliest of men. His working hours were not interminable and occasionally were _too _crowded thanks to his work at H Division which, though dangerous and exhausting, was reminiscent of his regimental days. Wearing his badge, he was part of a team, a group of men with shared purpose - but come the end of his shift, the moment when he tipped his hat to the Inspector, to Sergeant Artherton, and whomever else happened to be in the vicinity (Jackson excluded, the rascal) and walked through dark streets to reach his flat, then the chasm would open up before him, barely illuminated in the flare of the gas lamps that lined the streets.

He walked those streets alone.

Once home, he prepared a light supper (if he hadn't caught a bite at the Bear) and read - mostly about Egypt and often about Sekmet and the other gods and goddesses.

But there was no one to share this knowledge with, for he read alone.

As his eyelids grew heavy, he put the book down and retired for the night, stretching weary limbs across an empty expanse of cool sheets.

They were empty because Bennet Drake slept alone.

The men he spent his days with - the Inspector, Captain Jackson, Artherton, and even young Dick Hobbs - shared their non-working lives with loved ones. The Inspector and his missus had experienced a tragedy from which their relationship had not yet recovered, but they were still married, still together. And though Jackson's "arrangement" with brothel mistress Long Susan brought up far more questions than it answered, they were neither of them alone at the end of the day.

Bennet was.

Was it so strange then that he so eagerly sought a connection of his own? That he desired it so deeply so as to walk farther out onto a limb than any man in his right mind would have in the hopes of securing it? Though it was a scientific certainty that a heart dropped from such a great height would shatter on impact, still he ventured forth, for the alternative was far more frightening.

On the day of her rescue from the clutches of Arthur Donaldson - on the day he saw the eyes of the goddess in the face of a woman whose mere existence seemed to make his seem to matter more than it ever had - his open heart fell into the void. Yes, the very heart that Sekmet had restored to him in the desert - the one he thought long since crushed beneath military boot heels - devoted itself in an instant to the one and only Rose Erskine. After that, no logic of circumstance or science could dissuade it from its course. The goddess had delivered him from his nightmares in Egypt and delivered him to the feet of Rose back home in London. Certainly his vision of the goddess with her blue eyes and the piercing, indigo gaze of Rose could not be mere coincidence. There had to be a greater purpose at work; what that purpose was would be revealed to Bennet in time, would it not?

He had not discovered the answer to his question yet when he suddenly experienced heartbreak in its truest and most agonizing form.

It was the Achilles heel of possessing an open heart, Bennet concluded as he viewed the murdered body of young Dick Hobbs: _the open heart did not discriminate. _It did not limit its feelings to just one person in one circumstance, but rather it expanded until it loved another and then another in succession. It debilitated a man, prevented him from putting up the emotional fortifications necessary to keep away the wave of sadness that washed over Bennet on the fateful night he walked into Jackson's dead room and saw the boy's cold body before him.

Dick Hobbs barely looked as though he should be shaving, let alone wearing a badge. Youth was his weakness and yet also a tremendous strength that the Inspector and later Bennet and Jackson had learned to use to their advantage. The three had made a sort of pet out of the young bobby, serving at once as mentors and (occasional) _tor_mentors who silently shared the hope that they would one day see Hobbs as a full-fledged inspector himself, that by training him they were giving Whitechapel a future that was far better than its present.

That day was one upon which the sun would never rise.

All the talent in the world, all of the training the men had given, and the affection they had lavished upon him when he successfully accomplished whatever task they had set him to couldn't protect gentle Hobbs from the evil forces of the world. He was too good - and evil far too cunning. In the end, as he and the Inspector examined the body for the cause of the lad's demise, Bennet realized that, had his own son been laid out before him, he could have felt no more sorrow than he did in those dark moments.

It was too much; the grief was too overwhelming to bear alone - and yet that was Bennet's cross to bear. He and the Inspector could work side by side all day (Jackson having done a bunk and vanished mysteriously), but they would never speak of the depth of the loss to one another. Someone would have to inform Hobbs' young wife - a bit of a girl who was about to become both bride and widow in the same year - and comfort her, but there would be no similar someone to share Bennet's burden.

Was it any wonder that the nightmares promptly returned to plague him, rearing their menacing forms before him with such force that he shot up in bed, drenched in sweat and fear, the sheets ripped and clawed by his clutching, desperate fingers?

The goddess seemed to be absent from his presence for once - a disappearance that was far more disturbing than that of Jackson or even Rose, who had dispatched herself to Mrs. Reid's lodgings for women who wished to reclaim their lives. Bennet's loneliness had previously been tempered somewhat by the fact that he could still rely somewhat on Sekmet to stabilize his sensibilities. He could glance at the tattoo on his forearm, see her leonine face, and know that his spirit was at least protected and keeping company with one who held the power to hold evil thoughts at bay.

But in his latest hour of need, she was nowhere to be found. The tattoo was little more than etched lines across his taut skin.

Desperate, lacking a convenient local holy man, and caring not for what anyone else thought, he decided to let liquor fill the empty places where Sekmet, Rose, and Hobbs had once dwelled. And while he drank, he pondered. He pondered the loss of Hobbs, the last words he'd spoken to Rose ("Get along wi' you, girl"), the whereabouts of Jackson, and the conspicuous disappearance of one lion-headed goddess from his life at the very moment when he needed her once more.

And yet as the liquor took hold, he pondered further: _Was there really a bloody goddess in the first place? Or was she a mere hallucination?_

A holy man said some funny words in the desert while Bennet was scared for his life and high on God knows what, tattooed him, and all of a sudden his life was supposed to magically improve? He was supposed to find it safe to love those around him because he'd found a way to sleep without nightmares? _You were drugged, man! Of course you slept! _The more he drank on his lone stool in the Bear, the more he became convinced that the whole thing was mere smoke and mirrors - worse even than the rackets the freak show operators ran in the back alleys of Whitechapel.

And he'd believed in it all.

_What a fool you are, Sergeant!_

Continued cogitation and beer led Rose and the goddess to merge once more in his alcohol-addled mind - except this time their blue eyes taunted him and fueled an inner rage he'd long thought to be gone. _Damn them both! Damn Sekmet and her promise of hope and Rose and her aspirations! And damn both of them with their piercing bloody eyes!_

As he silently cursed them and sipped at his drink, a new tendril of thought was able to snake through the haze and present itself: Sekmet wasn't the only goddess in the world, was she? And Rose Erskine wasn't the only woman either. Certainly they were each unique in their own right, but both were lost to him now. (In fact, he'd never really had them - one wasn't real and the other was never attainable.) Perhaps another goddess could be found within Whitechapel's borders - or at least the closest facsimile that a week's wages could purchase. It was the way the world worked, was it not?

He wasn't far enough gone on drink to miss the concern - or perhaps it was disappointment - that crossed Long Susan's face when he handed her the money, but he cared not for her pity. The liquor made him bold, so when Susan said, "Rose is no longer with us - have you not heard?" he was fast and confident with his response: "Oh I heard alright. 'Tis the reason I come."

It all seemed so easy after that. He closed the door on Rose, opened the door to Bella, and moved forward with a "goddess be damned" attitude. Bella was nothing like either of them - she was soft and beautiful and her gentle eyes were a muted blue-gray that reminded him of the English Channel. They didn't pierce him, didn't challenge his mind in any way – and in fact, there was no iron will in the girl at all, no impetus to yank him from his stupor and force him back into the living world. There was instead simple tenderness and kindness and warmth – balm to his weary spirit in its time of need.

In the absence of his false goddess, Bella offered safe harbor - and words that soothed his wounded heart: "Is it true, Sergeant, you were sweet on Rose, but that she let you down?" She did not await his answer, but continued, "That makes her a fool and more besides. There's not a girl 'ere who doesn't think you are the finest of men."

And when she said those words to him, Bennet Drake was suddenly so very tired that he was amazed he could move or speak. Yet he must have managed both, for he was suddenly seated in the chair at the foot of Bella's bed with her cradled carefully in his arms. Rest was all he wanted now – forget the carnal thoughts that had initially brought him to Tenter Street. Rest without dreams would be far more useful and, as Bella curled into him gently - ever so gently - he held her as closely as he had done with Rose on that day he carried her back to the house in which he now sat. The difference on this night, however, was that Bella held him back. She held him securely so that sleep could find him at last.

And sleep he did. The nightmares remained banished to the borderlands of his mind where they had dwelled since he had met the holy man in the desert.

His last conscious thought was, _Who needs a goddess when you can hold onto a beautiful girl who thinks you to be the finest of men?_

Sometimes a tattoo is just a tattoo, he concluded. And so, in the absence of Sekmet and Rose and all things that Bennet Drake had - up until the death of Dick Hobbs - held holy in his life, he grabbed hold of the one thing that suddenly seemed to be certain and safe. Somehow her sweetness had rendered Bella into the perfect repellent for his nightmares and for that he was grateful. Almost at once, he decided to give up his search for the goddess, to cast aside all of his questions about what had occurred in Egypt, what he'd seen in his hallucination, and how a pair of piercing blue eyes on a plucky East London prostitute he'd never met before could appear on a lion-headed goddess who he now believed to be merely a product of his drug-addled and dehydrated imagination. To continue such a quixotic quest would be pointless - especially when the reality of life in Whitechapel required one to seize each and every good opportunity that came along before it passed by.

Did Bella make him happy? She made him feel safe and that was close enough. She had brought him a restful night of sleep when he was most in need of it - sleep that enabled him (as it turned out) to go out the next day and help the Inspector hunt down Ripper suspect Victor Trumper, a man long thought to be dead and who (very much alive) had kidnapped several young women - Rose among them. And a refreshed Bennet was able once more to come to Rose's rescue - a grizzled white knight in a shabby suit who freed her from her bonds, held her while she cried, and then deposited her safely back at Mrs. Reid's for nursing.

It somehow seemed appropriate that Rose saw him only as her perpetual savior, since he'd displayed rather true talent for it, but that was all the two would ever be to one another. He knew that now. And so he let her go, turned his back (he thought) for good, and returned to Bella's compassionate presence once more, vowing to do everything in his power to make her happy in return for the kindness she had shown him when he had most had need of it.

And yet in his peaceful and dreamless sleep, he sometimes still found that he awakened with the feeling that a pair of bright blue eyes were watching him from somewhere just out of sight.

TBC


	4. In the Sandstorm

**Author's Note: **And we're back in action with chapter four! (My apologies, readers – I feel as though every one of my friends got married in June so I've been traveling a lot.) Standard disclaimers apply here (which means if you're curious, go back and read the disclaimers from chapters one through three). I may also have taken a few tiny liberties with the action that occurred late in "A Stronger Loving World" just for the sake of creative/poetic license. (I asked the characters and they said they didn't mind.) Nothing major has been changed, so please don't blast me for inaccuracy. Any other commentary to share, you know how to do it. Cheers!

In the desert, young Army Sergeant Bennet Drake came to understand that each sandstorm that obliterated everything in its path and made even the simple act of breathing impossible was preceded by a period of extreme calm. As the storm approached, the stillness would slide slowly away until each grain of sand - and indeed the very air itself - began to vibrate with a tense, unnerving quality. As pressure increased, fierce winds would begin to wail and their strength would build and build until the grains of sand they picked up formed a gritty wall of destruction, wiping out everything in its way.

It was much later and only after all had been lost that he realized he and Bella had been a sandstorm in their own right. The calm and the peace that they found together - and the love, for none could doubt that the girl had soothed and stolen what was left of his much-battered heart for a time - was no more than a pregnant precursor to the ravage and devastation that would follow. Like the wind, life picked the pair up and used them as the force through which it would wipe out everything near them, everything they had come to care about - and like the storm itself, it started with the smallest of disturbances, the tiniest of tremors. And when the storm abated and skies cleared again, everything Bennet held dear had been laid to waste and he knew not how to repair the damage.

Nor did he care to.

In fact, as far as he was concerned, the goddess had been the cause of his trouble from the very moment he had first encountered her in Egypt - for once the storm passed, he once more concluded that she was very real and very vengeful to boot. He had dared to disbelieve and in retaliation she reappeared to him in the wake of Bella's death as though to prove with finality that she was his tormentor and not the savior he had once seen her as. The tattoo that had once been such a source of comfort and strength now seemed to glower at him from its prone position on his forearm and when the lioness herself crept into his dreams, her haunting indigo eyes taunted him.

_Why didn't you do more? Why didn't you save her? _she seemed to ask. _Why couldn't you be a better man, a better fighter? I saved you so you could be better, Bennet Drake._

Sekmet's pursuit of him was unrelenting until there was nothing he could do, save to drop his warrant card on Inspector Reid's desk, abandon his flat after destroying everything that reminded him of Bella and their life together pre-storm, and find a place and situation where he could silence her voice with a steady diet of liquor and physical pain.

Fortunately, Whitechapel had plenty of places to choose from.

Blood sport was popular in many back alleys and who better to know which ones were the most profitable than the very man who had once policed them? There was decent coin in it too - especially for a man who found himself beyond feeling of all kind and with a high threshold for torture. In fact, each night in the arena before he was lashed to the post in preparation for the spectacle, the announcer called out, "Let us discover the limits of this man's pain!" and Bennet bit back bitter laughter. No mere blows to his body would ever discern that - that was why he had offered himself up thus.

But the goddess did not give up her attachment to him as easily as he had turned from her. Each and every night he returned to the dosshouse that now passed for home, passed out, and allowed his mind to slide into oblivion as a brown bottle slipped from his limp fingers. And each and every night without fail, a pair of familiar blue eyes appeared to him through the blackness. They stared. They pleaded. They shamed.

_Why can't you be better? What use was saving you? Why did you let her go?_

He dreamt often of the horrible day as well, recalling the moment he had awakened in the dim confines of Gabriel Cain's condemned citadel, consciousness clawing its way slowly to him through the fog of peyote that clouded his senses.

The goddess had been there that day; he remembered that he opened his eyes and stared directly into the blue orbs of Sekmet herself.

_Or was it? Was it her or was it someone else?_

The peyote was powerful and its effects made him certain he was suddenly back in the desert - or nearly certain, anyway. He _must _have been. Whitechapel, H Division, Reid, Artherton, Jackson - surely all were part of a long dream he'd had. Now awake, he was once more Sergeant Bennet Drake, soldier in Her Majesty's army and serving under commanding officer Madoc Faulkner. He was naught but a weapon, a killer.

_Wasn't he?_

The faces of all those who had fallen under his blade found him then, their blood blurring into the sand he envisioned all around. Their visages loomed out of the darkness, leering and screaming at him in fury - dervishes of every shape and size at first, then suddenly there were more men behind them - Colonel Faulkner himself, dragon-like Arthur Donaldson, young Dick Hobbs, and many more streaming from the shadows and asking the goddess's question for themselves:

_Why us? Are you no more than one who kills for the relish of it? What __**good **__have you done, Bennet Drake? Why, you're no better than we were!_

He was surrounded and scared and he cried aloud, desperate for their forgiveness. The goddess had left him to their mercy and they showed none.

His hands were bound but his fingers clawed at the air anyway until all of a sudden they were clutched by the hands of another. _Sekmet had come after all!_

But wait. The hands were small and strong, but they were mere flesh and bone with nothing ephemeral to distinguish them. Though in his delirium he dared hope that Sekmet had decided not to forsake him after all, he could not be certain and so grasped her tightly while he swiveled his head in an effort to catch a glimpse of her red-robed figure. Once she had appeared to him in all her glory: his savior, the one who had banished the visions once and could surely do so again. She had led men into battle before and knew the stakes, foresaw the violence, and understood that casualties were inevitable. She had also led men _from_ battle, had saved them - men like Bennet Drake.

It was said she had the ability to make Evil tremble and Bennet had need of that talent now more than even he had in his youth. The storm of it enveloped him and he could see no way out.

But when the goddess spoke at last, her voice was earthly - and familiar: "Bennet, it's Rose. It's _your _Rose."

For certain it was a lie. Rose had never been to the desert for one - and moreover, she wasn't his. She never had been and once had as good as said that she never would be. Rose was released from his life the day he married Bella, so for her to materialize now was no more than one more ghost come to haunt him with the rest.

Yet Rose would always be more than a ghost. Had not her blue eyes continued to haunt his otherwise dreamless sleep each night while Bella curled catlike at his side? Had Rose not sought his help when she needed rescue or advice - and in turn, had he not given it freely? Released from his presence or not, the pair remained bound to one another in inescapable fashion.

That she had found him in the desert as well served as further proof of this. _Stubborn girl._

Wasn't she leaving London, though? Hadn't he followed her to Blewett's Music Hall and learned she intended to seek her fortunes elsewhere? And when that occurred, hadn't he discovered that he instead should have delivered his flowers home to Bella? He could have protected her gentle soul from Gabriel Cain and the sandstorm he had wrought in their lives had he done so.

Now it seemed the bound bodies of Bennet and Rose were trapped in the middle of that very storm.

A storm of this magnitude would claim everything in its path, Bennet knew. Even his clouded consciousness recognized the vibration of its power in the air and realized it would release its full fury upon them soon. And though she had proven herself resilient in the past, if Rose was really there beside him, she would fall in its wake this time. Evil would claim her once and for all.

But Rose couldn't really be there. This was the desert and he was a soldier and they were at war. In this world, Rose Erskine did not exist.

Yet still he felt her hands clutched in his.

He focused his gaze on her as best he could through the fog of the drug and spoke her name: "Rose?"

"Shh," was her response and he smelled gin on her breath.

_Dear God - she was really there!_ Hallucinations had no smell.

On an ordinary day - or merely any day other than the one at hand - Sergeant Bennet Drake of Whitechapel's H Division would have appreciated the sad irony of the situation: Here he lay, bound and drugged and his best hope of rescue was a drunk music hall performer no bigger than a wisp. Her weapons? Nothing more than her own wits and the eyes of a goddess.

No funnier farce could be seen onstage in the West End - and no playwright in his right mind would pen it. There was no time for further contemplation, though - the sandstorm was imminent.

What had he told Inspector Reid during the investigation of Linklater and Shine? Reid had asked if his old friendship with Linklater would be an impediment to bringing him to justice and Bennet had replied, "Friendship is trust, sir, and I do trust him no longer."

But did he trust Rose? And she him? So much had passed between them since that day he'd felt his heart leave his body and take up residence in hers. Truth be known, he'd never gotten it back from her - not really - but even so, he had given her no reason of late to have any faith in him whatsoever. He'd cast her out of his flat and his life; he'd married another; he had the gall to tell her "Nothing good comes from being 'round you" when Bella went missing. And if that wasn't cause enough for her to abandon him, he'd dared to strike her when she had sought to be nothing more than a true and honest friend to him.

He struck her and the pain of the blow resounded in his own body.

"Forgive me," he pleaded with Rose as the shameful memory broke momentarily through the fog with surprising clarity.

She responded again with, "Shh" and the blue eyes flared with the flame of something he couldn't recognize. Was it anger? Fear? Or something altogether different?

There was no time to ponder; the peyote claimed him once more.

She revealed her truth to him later. It was as the holy man had said to him on that long ago desert day when he'd inquired after Sekmet: "Only the goddess can reveal her secrets to you."

And the goddess Rose did not hold back when the time for revelation came:

As the storm that was Gabriel Cain wrought his fury upon the innocents in his path with a cowed Bella at his side, Bennet came back to consciousness in time to witness Rose coming to him across the extreme expanse of the desert – or so she appeared to him. She was bathed in a bright circle of light and above her head she wielded a sword, transformed as she was into a woman who possessed a fury that was more goddess-like than he had seen in even Sekmet herself.

Through the floorboards beneath him, he felt the whole world tremble. Before him, the evil that was Cain quaked with its power.

On the day he rescued Rose from Arthur Donaldson's garden prison, Bennet Drake had brandished a sword of his own in order to free her. The day he needed salvation of his own, she returned the favor, a fireplace poker serving as a sword and the goddess guiding Rose's steady hand.

For a moment, Bennet felt as though the whole world feared her fury - or perhaps just he did when he recognized the deadly glint in her blue eyes. His ears thundered with Rose's lion roar as she charged past Inspector Reid and a host of stunned H Division bobbies, her rage directed to Cain himself. Two blows dispatched the false prophet and a third sent Bella sideways, out of reach of the attack.

There was too much to take in as the peyote and bella donna swirled in his system and he felt himself lifted into oblivion once more. When his eyes opened again, he saw before him that Cain lay dead and young Flight restrained a whimpering Bella. The fog in his mind was thick - but had not proven thick enough to keep the ghosts at bay. They'd returned in his moment of helplessness and announced under no uncertain terms that it was a day of reckoning and he was to be borne away to Hell with them.

Lion-goddess or not, Rose could not save him from them and he murmured "I killed you" over and over again as they swarmed him from all sides.

_You deserve it_._ Look at the lives you've taken, the harm you've caused. Let go, Sergeant. Accept your fate._ The ghosts would not accept his contrition.

As the darkness became overwhelming, a booming voice from above broke through their accusations and Bennet's whimpering to cry: "Come on, Sergeant!"

It was Jackson! Jackson who wrenched his fingers down Bennet's throat to bring up the bella donna while Rose materialized from nowhere to grip his hands once more.

As he gagged and gasped, Bennet realized that the ghosts had abated once more and in his mind's eye, he saw the goddess Sekmet before him. She shimmered, bathed in light from within, and looked just as she had on the day he'd first seen her. Her eyes gleamed azure and the same peaceful stillness he'd felt before crept back into his heart, which shuddered to life with another resounding thud.

His body quaked with the force of it and he felt Rose's grip on his fingers tighten.

Bennet's communion with Sekment was interrupted, however, by yet another yell from above as Jackson finished his ministrations and proclaimed, "He's gonna be alright!"

The American thumped Bennet twice on the chest in boyish triumph and Bennet felt his heart leap once more. The gaze of the goddess was still locked upon him - he could feel it and his eyes remained focused not on the room that held him, but instead on her and her alone.

The goddess was real and she had not forsaken him. He had been a fool to doubt her.

Her final truth was revealed in the blink of an eye as he watched her nod at him with a degree of finality, then slowly fade into nothing. And as Sekmet became no more than vapor, the outline of Rose filled his field of vision, her blue eyes looking deeply within him while her left hand remained latched with his.

He was fully back to consciousness when her right hand released his and moved along his chest until it came to rest squarely over his heart. Unlike the day they met, however, on this occasion she did not miss; she had more than enough strength to follow through and when it came to rest on its mark, he felt the thing beat so wildly that he wondered if her hand had become the only thing that held it in place.

The events of the day - the drugs, the ghosts, the violence - had taken a substantial toll on his faculties, but Jackson's remedy worked to cut through the cloud and the truth of the goddess's message came across clearly. It was a message he had waited well over a decade to hear and its truth would not be denied:

Sekmet would not appear to him again. Egypt was too far away, both in geographic distance and in the span of time that had passed since he had fought upon her sands. In her stead, the goddess left with him a woman who had proven she possessed a lion heart of her own, a pair of penetrating blue eyes that saw everything before them, and the power not only to withstand evil, but to dispatch it with a vengeance.

Rose Erskine was no more and no less than a goddess on earth and Sekmet herself had bound Bennet to her long before the two had ever met. He had been a fool to think he could release her from his life – only the gods and goddesses held that power and Bennet Drake was a mere mortal.

Of course, the problem with earth-bound goddesses was that they too were mere mortals and not subject to the infallibility of their otherworldly peers. Rose was a flesh and blood woman despite her inner fortitude and therefore could not foretell what was to occur. She did not see Bella's death coming – nor did Bennet. Yet all three of them played a small role in it – the three sides of an Egyptian pyramid, each influencing the other until one side gave way and the entire thing collapsed into a pile of irreparable rubble.

The sandstorm obliterated what Bennet had considered to be the good parts of his life and he walked away from the ruins without even a glance backward over his shoulder. Egypt had haunted his life ever since he'd first set foot on her soil and no longer did he want any more to do with her or goddesses of any kind.

Yet Rose remained – and as long as she did so, goddesses were not yet finished with Sergeant Bennet Drake.

TBC


End file.
